INDEPTH: HAITI
The crisis in Haiti: Roots of revolution
CBC News Online | March 2, 2004
From The National March 1, 2004
Reporter: Brian Stewart | Producer: Carmen Merrifield
As the world can testify, events moved quickly in Haiti. Everything changed overnight, or so it seems. Unfortunately, history has a way of repeating itself in Haiti. Two hundred years of independence and it can't shake off the syndrome of a failed state. Generations have prayed for a better future, only to see the death of their dream. So the question is, why?
The term "failed state" hardly begins to describe Haiti, a nation that's been broken, terrorized and robbed blind by corruption from its very beginning.
And yet two centuries ago, Haiti was a wonder of the world. In 1794, its slave population rebelled against the French colonial power and won emancipation under a great rebel leader, Toussaint Louverture, who framed a constitution of liberty that was quoted throughout Europe.
Eight years later, his successors even defeated Napoleon's French troops and established the first free black nation in the Western Hemisphere, but independence brought crippling reprisals from France and the United States.
Elizabeth Abbott, now a dean at the University of Toronto, formerly lived and wrote in Haiti. She's also a historian of its modern power struggles.
"That question actually encapsulates why Haiti is such a mess today, because Haiti and Haitians were punished for having successfully revolted and becoming the first black republic," Abbott says. "Haiti took its own independence after a brilliant and complicated military campaign, and so the United States, which was then a slave nation, punished Haiti by a blockade that lasted for decades…and therein we find the roots of its economic chaos."
And so, isolated from the outside world and lacking in infrastructure to develop, Haiti sank into an impoverished and extraordinarily dark culture of violence wracked by successive coups and by tyrannies, more than 30 coups in all and tens of thousands murdered.
In despair, in 1957, the rural population turned to a country doctor, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier who seemed to promise calm and reform. What Haiti got was a ghoulish rule of terror by Duvalier's family. It was shored up by one of the world's most feared death squads, the Tonton Macoutes, armed thugs who routinely tortured and murdered suspected critics of the regime.
"Haitian presidents are traditionally terrified of their army because armies coup d'etated them, so they establish parallel civil militias," Abbott says. "In the case of the Duvaliers, it was the Tonton Macoutes, in the case of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it's the Chimères, and they rely on them rather than the army, which, as I said, they fear. So that was one way of ruling."
Haitians in much of the world hoped the popular uprising in 1986 that brought former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power might finally end this bizarre national malaise, but corruption, poverty and unrest continued without let-up.
American troops entered Haiti to save Aristide from a military coup, but they left. Aristide disbanded his own military overnight, creating even more armed militias that contributed to his overthrow this week.
So what now for Haiti? Potentially so beautiful, a country that has on one side a vibrant culture and brilliant art, yet remains on the other another of the world's failed states, lacking in everything needed to succeed.
"You need a government of technocrats. You need people who are going to be there no matter what," Abbott says. "You need to keep roads going and the hydro going and so on and so forth. You don't have that. That's one of many, many things. You have a deforested country. You need massive reforestation. There has to be peace, law and order. You have to know they're not going to get killed on the way to work. There has to be a modicum of health care.
"These things seem boring, and people don't like to talk about them. It's much more dramatic to talk about, you know, democracy and getting good government in, and of course that's essential, but no one no matter how saintly and wonderful is going to succeed if all these other things aren't in place, too."
Haiti has been a failed state longer than most, so the chances of ending those cycles of collapse now seem dauntingly remote without long-term and major help from outside.
Peter Mansbridge:
For some more insight now, we're joined by Robert Fatton Jr. He's from the University of Virginia and the author of the book Haiti's Predatory Republic, the Unending Transition to Democracy. Professor, you watch a report like Brian's, which paints a picture... a depressing picture of 200 years of chaos. You wonder whether anything can change that around. Do you have any reason to feel optimistic that this latest turn of events is going to make things any better?
Robert Fatton Jr.:
Well, I think there is an opportunity now, to the extent that we've flirted with civil war, it may well be that the different factions of the Haitian political class will try to get their act together, and this time compromise may, in fact, be the name of the game. If we don't start with that basic principle, I think troubles will very quickly re-emerge.
Peter Mansbridge:
Let me ask you about the U.S. involvement here. We've heard Aristide, his lawyer and some U.S. Congress people suggesting that the United States itself was involved in what, in effect, was a coup, that they ushered Aristide out of the country. Do you buy into that theory?
Robert Fatton Jr.:
Well, I think what happened is that if you look at the relationship between Aristide and the Bush administration, it was not a good relationship. And while the Bush administration recognized Mr. Aristide as a legitimate president, it very quickly decided that he was dispensable. Ultimately, I think what happened is that Mr. Aristide had no other option but to exit. Once the compromise was rejected by the opposition, then the Americans and the French decided that Aristide had to go.
And once he lost the support of the international community, which was very timid at that point, then he had very little else to depend on because he didn't have an army. He only had his Chimères, the armed thugs. In addition, he was confronting the armed insurgents. So it may not have been a coup in the proper sense of the term, but clearly Mr. Aristide was compelled to resign. It was not a voluntary resignation. It clearly was the only viable exit for him at that point.
Peter Mansbridge:
The United States is often criticized by whoever is in power in Haiti. Is that fair?
Robert Fatton Jr.:
Well, I think Haitians like to blame the external world for their own problems. There is a long history of foreign involvement that has been very negative, as your piece pointed out. Once Haiti became independent, it was considered a pariah nation by the Americans and the French. We had an American occupation, which was extremely violent. But the last 50 years or so, in spite of American involvement, I think Haitians have to account for a lot of the problems that we are facing. I think it's a combination of external interference and internal corruption and incompetence.
Peter Mansbridge:
Is that the easy answer to the question, why does it always seem that Haiti is such a mess?
Robert Fatton Jr.:
Well, yes and no. I think when you look at the situation in Haiti, what you have is a condition of massive deprivation, massive scarcity. So politics in that context, for the vast majority of Haitians except if you're born into the wealthy groups, becomes a business. So you run for office or you conquer it with violence and then you want to keep it. So that zero sum game politics invites those types of confrontation and nothing has changed so far. So, until you really resolve the deep-seated crisis that we have – economic crisis, ecological crisis, and, indeed, a moral crisis insofar as the Haitian political class as a whole has been very opportunistic and unprincipled – until you resolve this, whatever foreign assistance we may get will be wasted.
Peter Mansbridge:
We're going to have to leave it at that. Professor Fatton, we do appreciate your time tonight. Thanks.
Robert Fatton Jr.:
Thank you very much.
^TOP
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